Why I bought the headphones

Or, it’s ok that we both have something we need

We knew Cannon was autistic right before his second birthday. It wasn’t just the lack of speech; that could be explained away. And it wasn’t just the demur aspect of his personality, for that, too, varies with every child. I guess it really wasn’t any one thing at all, but a combination of behaviors that we couldn’t stop from happening coupled with the development we couldn’t force to come, and we just knew. 

But one thing that did come when the words failed to, was a yell. A very particular, high-pitched, mostly frustrated yell. The yell of a boy who couldn’t say, so he had to scream. From the small body of a two-year-old boy, this yell was loud, but manageable. 

We heard The Yell when he didn’t want to leave places, or when he absolutely did.

We heard The Yell when we tried haircuts or fingernail clipping.

We heard The Yell when he was nervous or dysregulated or simply did not want us to ask him to try the chicken nugget. 

We heard The Yell when his dominoes fell down. 

What I’m saying is that we’ve been hearing The Yell for years. But Cannon is not two years old anymore, and this yell from the body of an eight-year-old boy is not exactly what I would call manageable.

Over a year ago, our family took the video game leap (yep, the one I swore I would never take) and bought our six-year-old, Jordi, a Nintendo Switch. He had been begging for one after getting to play Mario Kart at his friend’s house, and after a little bit of research and the assurance from my husband that he would be the overseer of this device, we bought one. Jordi loved it. He still loves it. He and Alex have had many hours of laughter and fun and bonding playing that little blue and red electronic together. But there is another little boy in our house who is still having a tough time deciding if he loves this thing, or if it is the bane of his existence.

I think Cannon wants to love playing the Switch. I really do. The problem is autism won’t always let him, you know, with its insistence on predictability and control and all. There is one game in particular that Cannon wants to play every time called Crash, where a little orange fox with denim pants runs through an obstacle course and tries to avoid boxes of TNT because, naturally, those are not conducive to advancing to the next level. The problem is, Cannon cannot always avoid the TNT. Or the edges of floating pathways. Or weird figures with what I can only assume is some kind of poison on their person because Crash the Fox disappears on contact when these figures come too close. I don’t know all the logistics of this game, but I do know it makes Cannon a mess of anxiety, and yelling. So much yelling. So much taking that video game console and hitting himself in the forehead with it, and so much yelling. 

So you should just take the video game away from him, right?

Yes, we absolutely should take it away. The problem is when we do, he runs anxiously around the house yelling “Switch Crash! Switch Crash! Switch Crashhhhhh!” And I will be honest with you friends, I’m not sure which yelling is worse: Crash and the TNT box yelling or Cannon can’t find Crash yelling. What we should have done is never let him try the game in the first place, but that ship has sailed and now we are way out in the middle of the Nintendo Switch Ocean trying to find our way back to the port. 

In the meantime, my left ear drum has let me know how it feels about The Yell. Google tells me it is likely some kind of hyperacusis, which matters to no one but me, but I always feel validated when my symptoms have a name. The first time I noticed during one of Cannon’s “moments” that it felt like I had a bluetooth earbud stuck in my left ear projecting some kind of radio haze was a few months ago. The haze has been turned up to the point of low-level pain when the loud noise descends now. And I live with a little boy who is, daily, making quite a bit of very loud noise. In a moment of I absolutely cannot take this any more, I –the girl who proudly touts her $6.99 bluetooth earbuds–went on Amazon and bought $75 noise canceling headphones, which I now unashamedly keep on the counter not for music or audio books, but for every time a young boy wants to play a game with a little orange Fox, or the hundred other moments like it. 

There is nothing that keeps me on my toes quite as much as autism does. We manage or grow out of one behavior only to be met with the next one, and the eggshells we walk on seem only to extend longer and longer down the road. Of course it’s not all hard, or bad, or frustrating. Last weekend we took Cannon to look at the Christmas lights at a busy resort and it all went terribly far south when it was time to exit the elevator. But earlier that same day, he went in and out of three stores without one problem. A (very) bad few minutes. Not a bad day. You’ve heard me say it before but I will say it again: holding onto that distinction is vital. 

I don’t know, maybe one day we will have a season with autism that feels settled, maybe even with a semblance of predictability. Maybe not. But regardless, the job God has given me includes the good hard work of discerning Cannon’s needs and doing everything I can to help meet them in the moments he needs them met the most.

And as I do, I think it’s ok to meet a few of my needs, too. And mama needed some headphones. 

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To read more of my stories about raising a child with autism, grab your copy of Gluing the Cracks here.